Servant of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 7)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Elle motioned for him to follow, and they circled around before reaching the wall. She guided him toward a small hidden door along one side. With a shaping of water—more tightly controlled than even the last time he’d seen her—the door came open. Once inside, Elle shaped the door closed again, sealing it.

  Tan studied what she’d done. He might be able to repeat the shaping, but even that wasn’t guaranteed. Elle had learned exquisite control over water in a short period of time. “Did you learn from your water shapers or the elemental?” he asked.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re surprised that I can shape water?”

  Tan ran his fingers across the invisible seams of the door. He could sense where it was, but had he not known, he doubted he would have managed to find it. “Not surprised that you shape, but impressed with your skill.” He turned back to her. “You might be more talented than most of the kingdoms’ water shapers now.”

  Elle tipped her head, the slight crease to her brow making it appear that she listened to some distant voice. Likely she spoke to her water elemental. The elemental that Elle had bonded was different than udilm, different even than the nymid, yet there was power to what she did, and a strength to the elemental that few would have once believed.

  “Whatever skill I have comes from the fact that I listen,” she said.

  Tan smiled. Asboel had once said the same about him. “It’s that way with fire for me. There aren’t many shapers with my skill.” He wasn’t boasting, but it still felt strange to admit. “The other elements don’t come quite as naturally.”

  Elle’s face relaxed, the lines around her mouth softening. “I can try to help, Tan. With healing, that is.”

  She led him down the narrow streets and veered onto a side street that was slicked with water and coated with a brackish grime, as if the sea had managed to overflow the walls and spray along this street. Elle moved quickly along the street.

  “I don’t think there’s anything that you can do,” he said, keeping pace with her. “The nymid have already attempted to heal him, but even they can’t do anything more than what has been done. It’s delayed now, but in time, he will move on and return to the Great Mother.”

  Elle paused as she sucked in a quick breath. “The nymid might have attempted, but perhaps masyn can succeed where they failed.”

  Tan doubted that another elemental would be any more capable than the nymid, but he nodded anyway. “Why did you summon me here?” Tan asked.

  “Because you’re needed, Tan. Why else would I summon you?”

  They stopped at a small building with a door made of oiled wood. A sloped roof hung over the edge, leaving the door covered and protected from the wind and rain, but still the door had a weathered appearance, the wood faded and chipped in places. Corrosion and a thin green film, much like that on the street, coated the handle. Elle pushed the door open and motioned for Tan to follow.

  The other side of the door led into a small room. Inside was a long bench, a chest with the top thrown back to reveal stacks of clothing, and a simple shelf lined with books. A vase with cut flowers tucked within gave off a sweet floral aroma, covering the musty odor that seemed so prevalent within Falsheim.

  “This is your home?” he asked.

  “This is where I stay,” she answered. “Home is all of Doma.” She said the last with more force than Tan would have expected, but then she smiled.

  Tan took a seat on the bench and scanned the shelf, curious what books Elle found appealing these days. When she’d been in the university, she’d focused mostly on the elementals, taking texts that would reveal anything that might be useful to her so that she could learn shaping. But she’d never really managed to learn to shape while in the university. She hadn’t learned how to reach the elementals, either. All that had happened since the udilm had restored her, bringing her to water. He still found it surprising that she hadn’t bonded one of the udilm, but rather an elemental that Tan had never before heard of.

  “Elle,” Tan began, “Zephra was taken. Par-shon has her.” And there might not be anything that he could do to reach her. There might not be anything he could do to stop Par-shon.

  Elle nodded. “I know.”

  “You know? How?”

  Elle took a seat next to him. This close, her skin was cool and clammy, leaving her dress damp. “Water speaks to me, Tan. Water flows through everything. It is life.”

  Tan wished he understood which elemental really was the source of life. From speaking to the elementals, each felt that they were the source of life. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe they were all needed for life.

  “What does that have to do with knowing what happened to Zephra?” he asked.

  Elle tapped his chest painfully and Tan pulled back. “You think you are the only one with any talent, Tannen Minden?” she asked. “You are skilled with fire, and you can use the other elements, but you can sometimes be obtuse.”

  “Elle,” he began slowly, not wanting to upset her again. Elle had a temper. He’d seen that when he first got to know her when they were both at the university, but since then, he didn’t really know her. Like him, she’d changed much. Whatever she’d gone through had made her stronger and more independent. “Can you find my mother?”

  “Why else would I have called you here?” she asked.

  Tan shook his head. “I don’t really know, to be honest. And I don’t think that I have much time to find her. They might already have stripped her bond from her. If they managed to do that . . . ” Tan didn’t want to finish. He couldn’t think of what would have happened to his mother if they’d managed to tear her bond away, or whether she could even survive it.

  Elle closed her eyes and tipped her head to the side. “The bond remains,” she said. “I don’t know how, and neither does masyn, but the bond is intact.”

  Tan sat upright and caught Elle’s wrist, pulling her around so that she faced him. How could the bond still be in place? Could it be that Par-shon didn’t want to separate the bond, or was there something more to it? Had the healing changed something about the bond? “Wait, are you able to sense her now?”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t really know why I’m here, but if you know where my mother is, I need to reach her.”

  “You can’t. At least, not easily.”

  Tan sat back, letting out a frustrated breath. “How can you sense her?”

  Elle smiled and laughed to herself. “Par-shon doesn’t even know that masyn exists. They think all of water is udilm or the nymid.”

  “But they’ve bonded to water. How could they not know?”

  “I think it’s their way of resisting. Water doesn’t like the bond, Tan. They do all that they can to resist, but there’s only so much that can be done.”

  Tan suppressed the surge of excitement within him. How many elementals were like masyn; how many would Par-shon not know about? Tan remembered what he’d seen of the Utu Tonah, the way that he’d been so heavily bonded that it seemed impossible for him to not know of any elemental, but would Tan have thought to look in the mist for elemental power? Would he have known, if not for Elle?

  Possibly, he had to admit. His connection to the elementals gave him a different understanding, one that the Utu Tonah could never know. And somehow, he would have to use that to stop the Utu Tonah. Only, Tan didn’t know how he would be able to do that.

  “Can you tell me where she is?” he asked. If he only knew that, he might be able to figure out some way to reach her.

  Elle grabbed a book from the shelf and flipped it open, folding out a page inside it to reveal a carefully drawn map. Doma was large on the map, leaving Incendin and the kingdoms depicted much smaller to the west and the south. Only Chenir rivaled Doma in scale.

  “There’s something wrong in Chenir,” Elle said, pointing to the map. “Masyn tells me that this part”—she motioned to an area along the middle of the country—“has changed. I’m not really abl
e to understand why. Par-shon controls the rest. If not for udilm and our shapers, I think that Doma might have been attacked again.”

  Tan wasn’t sure that it was the Doma shapers that kept her people safe, or whether it was some residual effect of Incendin’s shaping. That shaping was powerful and pushed away the other elementals. In that way, it was probably much like how Chenir called the elementals away.

  He hadn’t really considered it that way before, but it made sense now that Incendin would be as barren as it was. If they used shapings as they did, if they were forced to push away elementals, then they would end up much like Chenir with the elementals withdrawn. It wasn’t quite the same; Incendin still had elementals, but he wondered if that difference was due more to the fact that they used fire in their shapings, and thus allowed the fire elementals to remain.

  They were questions for scholars, and Tan wasn’t one. He barely had time to understand the elementals well enough to help them. And now he had to find some way to reach his mother, and rescue her, before Par-shon stole the bond from her.

  He studied the borders, noting the mountains that separated the kingdoms from Chenir, as well as Incendin from Chenir, effectively isolating the entire country. Doma shared a flat piece of border that he’d never visited, but the map claimed that it was mostly swampland between Doma and Chenir, making that way more difficult to traverse.

  “Chenir has retreated to here,” Tan said, pointing to the map.

  They were much closer to the border with the kingdoms than he had realized. They would still need to pass through the mountains, and doing so would be difficult, but Tan figured that with shapers helping—and possibly the elementals that were called away from the land—they had only another week or two before Chenir reached the kingdoms. How much longer before Par-shon’s attack moved beyond Chenir? How much longer before they attacked Doma again?

  “Why have they retreated so far?” Elle asked.

  “They’re pulling back, calling the elementals with them,” he answered. “Think of what Doma was like when Par-shon invaded. Do you remember how your land changed as the elementals were taken from you? It’s much the same in Chenir, only they are calling all of the elementals away as they retreat into the kingdoms.”

  “They think the barrier will protect them and the elementals?” Elle asked.

  She had a quick mind and had picked up on what Chenir intended faster than Tan. “That’s what they think,” he answered. “But once they retreat, their lands are lost and the elementals will change.”

  Elle tapped a point on the map and made a circle with her finger. “All of this is Par-shon. They have countless elementals bonded here, Tan, more than even masyn can report. I can’t even tell you how many people are there, only that it’s more than when Par-shon attacked Doma.” She looked up at him, her eyes reddened. “I know that you want to save your mother, but I don’t think there’s any way that you can even reach her.”

  Tan sighed, understanding what Elle said. “Without the elementals, there’s not much that I can do. I won’t be strong enough otherwise.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Elle pulled it open. Vel stood on the other side. Dressed now in a dark green jacket with his gray hair slicked back, he looked different than the last time Tan had seen him. The madness in his eyes was gone, leaving them clear and bright. He pulled on the hem of his jacket as he stepped across the threshold and into the house.

  “You’ve told him about Zephra?” Vel asked her.

  “He knew that she was captured.”

  “Then you’ve shown him where she is?”

  Elle nodded.

  “You need to find some way to reach her, Tan,” Vel said.

  “I was with her when she was captured. I nearly died, and without the nymid, I might have. I don’t know that there is any way that I can reach her.”

  Vel stopped and leaned toward Tan. “There’s a way that you haven’t considered,” he said. “You might be the only one who can use it.”

  “I can’t use the artifact, Vel. It’s not meant for—”

  “You don’t know what it was meant to be used for. You’ve seen it used by Althem, but do you really think that someone like him was ever meant to control power like that?”

  “No one is meant to control power like that,” Tan said. “There’s a reason the ancients hid it. I think they discovered just how dangerous it was and made certain that no one could use it. That might be the only good thing that they did.” He said the last bitterly, thinking of how much his ancestors had betrayed the elementals.

  Vel moved back and leaned against the wall. He rubbed one hand across his head and his mouth pursed. “You think that the ancients knew so little that they didn’t intend their device to be used?” he asked.

  Tan faced Vel. “I’ve seen what the ancients knew, Vel. I have seen the way that they sought to harness the elementals, the experiments they worked when they crossed the elementals. It’s because of them that we had creatures like kaas or the hounds.”

  Vel stiffened and stood away from the wall. “What do you mean by the hounds?”

  Tan sighed. “They’re elementals of earth and fire. They’re like kaas in that, but more of earth than fire. I’ve done what I can to restore them and bring them into the fire bond. It’s changed them, I think.”

  Vel glanced at Elle. “Did you know of this?”

  “I only knew of Zephra. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to him about the other yet.”

  “What other?” Tan asked.

  Vel tapped on Tan’s shoulder and started toward the door. “Come on, Tannen. For this, I must show you.”

  18

  An Ancient Connection

  Tan followed Vel outside the city, where he used a shaping of water to fly above the land, much like the Par-shon shapers. Even Elle managed to shape the same way, practically gliding across the sky, using a shaping of pure mist that glistened in the air. Tan thought that he could do something similar, but it might take a deeper connection to water than he possessed. The nymid might help, but he wasn’t sure that he could use them in the same way that true water shapers managed. Tan could use fire and wind to fly, and he could travel on warrior shapings that combined each of the elements, but using only a single element like water would be difficult.

  They stopped to the north, and Vel pointed into the distance. From Elle’s map, Chenir would be beyond the wide swamp. Vel hung as if suspended above the ground, his feet sliding above the surface of the water. Elle used her shaping of mist to stay in place.

  “What is it?” Tan asked.

  “Don’t you sense them?” Vel asked. “Can’t you see them?”

  Tan wished that Asboel could be with him, that he could use the draasin’s sight to see where Vel pointed. As he did, he realized that he hadn’t heard Asboel’s voice in his head since leaving Ethea. The draasin was weakened and sick, but Tan prayed that they still had time together. He needed the chance to help Asboel hunt once more, even if he had to shape the wind to allow the draasin to float above the ground. His friend deserved that much.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said, stretching out with an earth sensing, reaching away from him, straining to determine what Vel might have noticed. Earth focused strangely here, and Tan didn’t quite know why. He added water to the sensing, calling to the nymid, and felt the draw of the water, suddenly aware of much more than himself.

  Fire burned across the swamp.

  Tan released his sensing. Reaching for the fire bond, he quested out. What elemental was out there? It wasn’t the draasin. Cora remained in Incendin, and as far as Tan knew, Cianna was still within the kingdoms. Both would keep their draasin close by.

  The hounds. He sensed a pack, each pulling on the fire bond. There was one that was not, and the others trailed it.

  Tan shaped himself toward the hounds.

  Lightning brought him to the ground on the other side of the swamp. He sensed the water spreading out behind him, and could vaguely detect Ell
e and Vel following him on their shapings. The hounds clustered around another, as if seeking to contain another hound. As Tan appeared, one of the hounds turned his attention to Tan and briefly flashed his fangs.

  Tan kept himself in the air to stay away from a possible attack. Unsheathing his sword, he focused on the hound still outside the fire bond and pulled on the shaping of earth and fire that was needed to bring it back. As he dragged on the shaping, pulling with incredible effort, he found the hounds granting him their strength. When the hound was brought into the fire bond, there was a flash of light and a surge of spirit.

  He sagged, dropping to the ground, the shaping that had been holding him aloft failing.

  One of the hounds bounded toward him. A shaping of water built from behind him with incredible strength. Tan turned and saw Vel hovering over the ground, readying to attack the approaching hound.

  “No!” Tan shouted, diving toward the hound as Vel unleashed his shaping.

  A powerful burst of water struck him and deflected off the nymid armor. The force of it sent Tan spinning, spiraling away from the hound and sprawling in the middle of the collected pack. Tan lay in place for a moment, staring upward and trying to clear the ringing in his head. Fire flared around him as flashes of light.

  He struggled to sit, and as he did, one of the hounds crouched in front of him. The creature was massive, larger than any other Tan had seen, and radiated a sense of size. Tan quested toward it with a sensing, cautiously wanting to ensure that the hound had been healed, brought back into the fire bond. The connection was there, blazing with fire, but also with the heavy rumbling weight that he’d associated with earth.

  Vel dropped next to Tan, holding a powerful shaping at the ready. Above Vel, Tan sensed Elle waiting, careful not to approach too closely. “Get up,” Vel urged.

  “Vel, I told you that they’re elementals.”

  “I saw the way that creature attacked you.”

  Tan rubbed at his temples, trying to clear the throbbing in his mind. He considered asking Vel to heal him. The water shaper would be able to find some way to clear the pain, but seeing the tension in his body and the way his jaw clenched as he spun in place, Tan wasn’t sure that Vel was in any mindset to try to heal him.